


Patchwork Quilt

by ashley_in_the_know



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Depression, F/M, Family, Found Family, Isolation, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, minecraft au, non-graphic mentions of torture, self discovery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 05:05:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7999657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashley_in_the_know/pseuds/ashley_in_the_know
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Separated in a storm at sea, three siblings find themselves at the mercy of strangers.</p>
<p>Her voice taken from her, Ashley struggles to communicate with the man who saved her life, and who seems determined to work his way under her skin and into her heart.</p>
<p>Alone for the first time in her life, it's time for Meg to figure out who she is without Ryan and Ashley. But that doesn't mean she can't accept a little help from a trio of grumpy fishermen.</p>
<p>Ryan retreats further into himself than ever before, blaming himself for the apparent deaths of his sisters. He doesn't want or need a new family, but the group of misfits that take him in seem to have a different idea.</p>
<p>They might not ever find their way back to each other, but they're sure as hell going to find something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. a dark and stormy night

(Meg)

Lightning streaks across the sky as someone shakes her awake, the ship pitching and rolling with the ferocity of the storm. Ashley holds a finger to her lips, the crazy gleam in her eyes that usually ends with them being whipped.

Meg's stomach rolls with the ship, a sensation that hasn't plagued her in weeks. Being held captive on a pirate ship for who knows how long will cure anyone of seasickness quickly enough. According to their captors, they were lucky. Being sold into slavery instead of prostitution meant that none of the crew were allowed to touch them. Not that that necessarily stopped them. Shifty Pete had tried, only to have Ashley stab him in the eye with a rusty nail that she'd dug out of the floorboards. Ashley had been punished, but the rumor was that Shifty Pete had been thrown to whatever monsters lay in the depths of the ocean.

Ashley presses something into Meg's hand; another nail. She's clutching one as well, and Meg can see blood on the floorboards and under Ashley's torn up fingernails.

And then Ashley is reaching through the bars of their cell to fiddle with the padlock, and Meg's heart jumps into her throat. She grabs her sister's arm, yanks her away from the door. "What do you think you're doing?" she demands.

Ashley's smile is more fond than annoyed. "I'm breaking us out of here," she whispers. "What does it look like I'm doing? Now hush. The storm's loud, but they could still hear you."

"Are you crazy?" Meg asks as Ashley goes back to picking the padlock. "Even  _if_ we make it off the ship, we're in the middle of the ocean. We'll starve to death, or drown, or we'll be sitting ducks for the pirates to recapture us."

"I heard some of the crew talking," Ashley starts. "They spotted land on the horizon hours ago, before the storm started. We should be close." She huffs. "Now if I could just get this damn lock open..."

The ship pitches, nearly turning on its side, throwing them both across the cell. Once the ship has righted itself, Meg sits up and gasps. "Ashley, look."

The padlock is in pieces on the ground, a pulley swinging wildly from the ceiling. Ashley grins. "Let's go," she whispers. "Quietly."

They tiptoe through the lower levels of the ship, holding their breath as they sneak past the crews' sleeping quarters. Most of the hammocks are filled, a good sign. The more crew members sleeping in their beds, the fewer they have to sneak past on the deck to get off the ship.

Rain and wind batters them the moment they emerge on deck. Ashley takes Meg's hand, leading her slowly to the stern. Suddenly, a flash of lightning illuminates the deck, lighting up the exact spot where Meg and Ashley are standing. The alarm bell rings out, audible even over the noise of the storm.

Ashley curses under her breath, even as she pushes Meg towards a stack of empty rum barrels. The crew is yelling, their thundering footsteps drawing closer, and there's a wild look in Ashley's eyes again.

She puts her lips to Meg's ear. "Do you trust me?" she yells, and Meg nods, her heart in her throat once more.

Ashley pulls a necklace over her head, a leather cord with a seashell pendant, and places it around Meg's neck. "We'll see each other again," she promises. "Now grab one of those barrels and jump. I'll hold them off."

"I'm not going without you," Meg protests.

"Just go!" Ashley says. "I'll be fine." And then Meg's being shoved into the barrels, and she can either take one and jump or let the whole stack push her overboard and drown her. So she jumps.

The impact and cold of the water takes her breath away. She manages to orient herself, half laying across the barrel. Lightning lights up the sky once more, and she sees the captain on the deck. His scimitar flashes, slicing at a small figure that can only be her sister.

She's carried away from the ship on the waves, tears mingling with the water streaming down her face, screaming Ashley's name.

(Ashley)

It's a suicide mission, she knows it, but she's not about to let her baby sister die on this ship or be sold into slavery. So she breaks them out of their cell during a storm, and she make sure that Meg at least escapes overboard.

Once Meg is safely away, she surrenders herself to the crew, dropping her makeshift weapons and clasping her hands behind her back. And then she's in front of the captain, and she knows she's about to die.

Time slows, her heart pounding in her ears. She barely feels the hand yanking her hair, forcing her head back. And then the moon and lightning are reflecting off of a blade. A sharp pain flares across her neck, and she collapses into blackness.

* * *

She spends the next week or so in a barely conscious haze, pain her only stimulus. Even when the kindly old cook is pouring water or broth down her throat, all she wants to do is scream, and she can't even do that.

The storm chases them, where to she isn't certain, she knows only that it's getting worse. When she hears the crew speak, it's in hushed whispers. Some of the most superstitious of the lot are convinced that she's bad luck, and that throwing her overboard will solve all of their problems. She honestly doesn't even think she would mind. Death is death, whether on the ship or in the ocean.

When the sea finally tears the ship to pieces, and everyone is praying or screaming in terror, she closes her eyes and tries to sleep.

(Ryan)

He has to find them.

The seas have been rough and choppy the entire trip, and their small boat nearly capsizes several times. He knows the only thing keeping the captain from ordering the crew to turn around and go home is the large sum he's promised them. Not that he actually  _has_ the money that he's promised to pay them, but he figures that's a detail he can sort out when he has his sisters back.

He has to find them.

Pirates usually have treasure right? Maybe he can pay them in pirate treasure once they've caught up with the kidnapping scum. Assuming they ever actually catch up with the pirate ship. They were at a disadvantage from the beginning, the pirates being much faster and having a significant head start.

He has to find them.

The storms that have started pounding them aren't helping anything. He'll be the first to admit that he knows nothing about sailing, but he's pretty sure they've been blown off course at least three times. There are days that he truly believes he'll never see Ashley or Meg again. He tries not to dwell on those thoughts, but they're hard to escape.

It's his fault that they're gone. He was supposed to protect them and he failed. He'd promised their parents that he would take care of Meg and Ashley, that he would die before he let anything bad happen to them. And now...

He has to find them.

The storms only grow worse and worse. They lose supplies and crew overboard at an alarming rate. The captain tries to keep spirits up by assuring them that his charts indicate they're close to land. It doesn't work. Ryan overhears the boatswain and several others plotting a mutiny.

And then, on the one day that's moderately clear and storm free, they come across evidence of a shipwreck. A mast floating in the water bearing a pirate flag. Ryan is advised not to look over the starboard side by the lookout. "You don't need to be seeing that, lad. Trust me."

The captain takes him into his cabin, sits him down, and solemnly tells him that there's no way anyone could have survived a wreck like that. He apologizes, and he sounds genuinely sorry.

And Ryan loses it. The captain isn't expecting it, so he's able to steal his pistol. The barrel is pressed against his temple, his shaking finger ready to pull the trigger. And then another storm springs up out of nowhere, the ship rocks violently, and both men are thrown to the floor. The captain wrestles his pistol away from Ryan and pulls him to his feet.

"C'mon, son," he says, "they're going to need our help out there, keeping this tub afloat."

But when Ryan reluctantly follows the captain out onto the deck, even he knows their efforts will be futile. The skies are black, and the ship is being buffeted by the winds and the rain and debris from the pirate ship. A waterspout lifts the ship several meters into the air, and Ryan hears splintering wood when it slams back into the waves. Lightning strikes the mast, and he watches it crush several men.

He remembers seeing what might have been land, earlier when the skies were clear. He decides to jump and make a swim for it. It's the craziest idea he's had all day, and he had a pistol to his head only minutes before. There's a very high probability that he'll die before he ever makes it to shore, but the odds of survival are marginally better than staying on the ship.

The swim is the hardest he's ever encountered, but he thinks he might be making progress. And infinitesimal part of his brain whispers that if _he_ could survive a shipwreck and a swim in storm-crazed seas, then Ashley and Meg could too. And so he continues to swim, even when it feels like he can't swim any longer, powered by his nigh impossible goal.

He has to find them. 

 


	2. lost and found i: Ashley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the next three chapters will introduce our siblings to their rescuers, starting with Ashley on the far North coast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a side note, I decided to age everyone down by ten years, so most will be in their late teens to early twenties, and the founding fathers in their early thirties

(Burnie)

He knows as soon as he wakes that it's going to be a miserable day, and the sun isn't even up yet. The steady downpour from the past week and a half has turned into a weak drizzle, and Matt will insist on not postponing their scavenging trip any longer. Burnie's not exactly looking forward to what they have to do. Survivors are rare after storms of this magnitude, and the deluge of rain is going to make graves twice as hard to dig. And that's not to mention the number of waterlogged, possibly week old, corpses they'll have to deal with.

Yeah. Today was going to suck.

He dresses by candlelight, deciding against any secondary layers. It means he has a cold walk ahead of him, but also that he won't pass out in the afternoon sun. He heads down to the kitchen for a quick breakfast, not even bothering to knock on Barbara's door as he passes. She's been begging to be allowed on one of these trips since her last birthday, and while he's willing to let her tag along, he also knows how much she enjoys her sleep. So he'll let her sleep, and he'll see her when he gets home later that night.

He stops short for a moment when he reaches the bottom of the stairs and finds Barb already at the kitchen table nursing a mug of tea. She smiles up at him sleepily. "Morning," she says, stifling a yawn. "I made breakfast."

Burnie snags a sausage link from the pan on the stove. "You're up early," he comments, eating half the link in one bite.

Barb rolls her eyes. "You said we'd be going to the shore if the weather was good enough today," she reminds him. "It's barely raining, I'd say that's good enough."

They finish breakfast in silence, but he stops her with a hand on her shoulder when she rises. "Are you sure you want to do this?" he asks. "This isn't your normal trip to the beach. Whatever we find there isn't going to be pretty."

"I know, Burnie," she says seriously. "Nobody here is a stranger to shipwrecks. Or are you forgetting how most of us ended up in this village?"

He sighs. She has a point. He, Matt, and Anna don't remember how they found the village, or each other for that matter, but they've been taking in survivors of shipwrecks for as long as ships have been washing up on their shores. "I guess you're right," he says. "But don't be embarrassed if you need to take a break. The first time is always the hardest." He lowers his voice. "This stays between us, but Brandon threw up his first time out."

Barb's eyes widen with delight. "Really?"

He shouldn't be telling her this. She's never going to let it go. But he nods anyway. "More than once." He glances out the window to check the time and weather. The drizzle has kept up, though it looks weaker than before, and the sky is starting to lighten, though they still have at least another hour before sunrise. "Get your boots on," he tells Barb, starting to pull on his own. "We don't want to keep Matt waiting."

* * *

The sun is just starting to rise when they reach the shore, and the scent of death is already reaching unbearable levels. He sees Brandon and Chris head for the bushes, and even Matt is looking a little green. He shares a look with Matt and they both nod.

"Alright, everyone listen up," he starts. "Burying the dead quickly is our top priority. Normally, we'd dig individual graves, but that isn't happening today. Today, we're doing one mass grave, got it?"

Everyone nods, and he continues. "Okay, half of you grab a shovel from the cart. Brandon and Kara will show you where to start digging."

"What about the rest of us?" Barb asks uneasily.

Burnie sighs. "The rest of you are searching for bodies with me and Matt. It's not going to be pleasant, but we wouldn't have brought any of you along if we thought you couldn't handle it." He looks at their team, mostly kids who have never been on this side of a salvage before. "Any questions?"

Miles is the only one to speak up. "What do we do if we find a survivor?"

"If you find a survivor, call for me or Burnie," Matt says. "We'll figure out what to do from there."

* * *

The number of bodies that they find washed up on the beach is beyond depressing.  Most of them appear to be pirates, but they find a few that were obviously on the ship against their will. Some even still have manacles locked around their wrists.

"Are we almost done?" Barb asks softly. She's been at Burnie's side for most of the morning, and he can see the toll it's taking on her.

There's only one small section of the wreck left to search. "Go take a break," he tells her. "I can finish this up by myself."

Even alone, his search takes almost no time at all. The only sign of life he finds is a severed hand that he is more than happy to leave floating in the shallows. Looking back down the beach, he can see that the rest of the team has finished their search. Matt and Blaine are taking the last of the corpses to be buried, and the rest are sitting up by the treeline with Barb.

He's starting back to join the rest of the group when a branch snaps behind him. He turns quickly, startled, only to find that the source of the noise is a curious feral cat. It's sniffing at something in the underbrush, and Burnie weighs his options for a moment before going to investigate.

The cat hisses and bolts back into the forest when he approaches, but Burnie is more focused on the body that he can now see. It's a young woman, one of the ship's captives judging by the manacle locked around one wrist and the ghastly cut across her throat. The wound is inflamed, obviously infected, and he marvels that she seems to have survived not only the initial cut, but the shipwreck as well. He thinks that she deserves a proper burial, a marker perhaps, some kind of testament to her strength, instead of being thrown into a mass grave with those that killed her.

He doesn't realize that she might still be alive until he starts to move her from the bushes she'd taken shelter under. Her skin is cold, but he can feel the burn of a fever beneath the ice. Just as he notices the slight rise and fall of her chest, her eyes flutter open, momentarily pinning him before falling closed again.

It's impossible. By all logic, she should be dead. But she isn't, not yet, and if he can get her to Anna fast enough, she won't be anytime soon.

He picks her up, tries not to dwell on how easy it is for him to carry her across the beach. It doesn't take long for everyone to notice that he isn't hauling her off into the forest to be buried. Barb reaches him first, breathless with anticipation. "Burnie, is she..." She leaves the question hanging, not wanting to say the actual word.

He nods, and there's a ripple of gasps. "Yeah," he says, "she's alive."

(Ashley)

The first thing that registers in her mind is that she's no longer at sea. There are no waves crashing, no pirates cursing, the ground beneath her is stable. It might have all been a bad dream, except for the pain. Something has lessened the sting of the welts on her back, but her throat is still consumed by fire. Tears spring to her eyes, but she fights to hold them back. Until she knows where she is, until she knows if she's safe or not, she will force herself not to cry.

She opens her eyes cautiously and finds that she's alone. She's in a small room, about the size of the bedroom she and Meg shared back home. The room itself is dim, but there's light shining through a window on the opposite wall. She tries to sit up to get a better look at her surroundings, but a wave of vertigo forces her back down. She manages to spot a chair, and a long table stretches across the wall under the window, covered in bottles and jars. She tries again, manages to fight the nausea enough to sit up against the headboard.

She tenses when she hears voices outside of the room. They're too soft for her to hear what they're saying, but there's at least two of them; one female, one male. The door opens, and she picks up part of what the female voice is saying.

"-suffered a great deal of trauma, Burnie. It could be a while before she wakes up, if she ever does."

"I know, Anna, I'm sorry." The male voice. Burnie? "I'm just worried about her. It's been almost a week."

Oh god. They're talking about her, aren't they? A week? She's been, what, unconscious? For almost a week?

In her panic, she misses most of the woman's reply. "-of infection. Hopefully..." There's a sharp intake of breath as a man and a woman step into the room. The woman is small, maybe even smaller than Meg, and something about her reminds Ashley of her mother, though this woman can't be much more than thirty. The man (Burnie, her brain supplies) is built like Ryan, tall and broad, and she might actually be afraid of him if he weren't looking at her with such genuine concern.

"You're awake," he says, and all she can think to do is nod.

The woman, Anna, pulls the chair over to the side of the bed. "How are you feeling?" she asks.

Ashley tries to speak, tries to tell her about the pain in her throat, the dizziness, but no sound comes out. She clears her throat to try again and the pain flares, and she should be screaming right now, but there's no sound. Nothing. She's flooded with panic, and she can't control the way her breathing speeds up until she's almost hyperventilating.

"Honey, calm down, please." Anna's voice is soft in her ear, the hand on her back the only thing that's grounding her. "Match your breathing to mine," Anna murmurs. "You're going to be okay, just breathe with me."

Eventually she's able to slow her breathing down enough to satisfy Anna, but she can't stop the tears that have been falling freely. Her body is trembling, she can  _feel_ her sobs but she can't  _hear_ them.

"What's wrong?" Burnie asks, and Ashley realizes it's his hand on her back, attempting to soothe her.

"It never even crossed my mind," Anna says, and Ashley thinks she might be crying too.

" _What_ , Anna?"

"Her voice," she says. "It's gone."


	3. lost and found ii: Meg

(Meg)

She's lost track of days by the time she finally reaches land. The ground is cool and slightly sticky under her sunburned cheek. Clay she thinks; not the hot, coarse sand of home. The barrel she'd escaped with bobs in the shallows beside her, occasionally nudging her calf as if prodding her into action.

She whines pathetically, too physically and mentally exhausted to move. Her upper body is stiff and aching from days? of clinging to the barrel to stay afloat. She's hungry, quite possibly  _literally_ starving, and she's pretty certain she has heatstroke. She'd be tempted to close her eyes, if not for the image of her sister being murdered that's burned itself onto the backs of her eyelids.

It hits her like a cinder block; Ashley is  _dead_ , died protecting her, sacrificed herself so that Meg could escape. The seashell around her neck digs into her flesh as her chest heaves with violent sobs that she can't hold back anymore. The noises she's making are guttural, inhuman things, and, dehydrated as she is, a few hot tears slip down her face. She feels bile rising up in her throat and manages to push herself up enough so that she won't drown in her own vomit. When there's nothing left for her stomach to force out, she slumps back down, on her side this time, and tries to remember if the clay was red before she puked all over it.

She allows her eyes to flutter shut, tells herself it'll only be for a moment, but she ends up drifting in and out of consciousness. And maybe she drifts for hours or maybe only a few minutes, but suddenly she's hearing voices; muffled as if she's underwater. She thinks she might feel fingers pressing against her neck. One of the voices pushes through her haze. "So, is she dead, or..."

"No." A different voice. Closer than the first one. Maybe? Her brain can't decide, doesn't really care. "C'mon, we need to get her out of the sun."

She has the brief sensation of being lifted, and then she's drifting again.

(Jeremy)

He doesn't want to go anywhere near the fishing village (if three people sharing two huts could really be called a village). Gus is an asshole, Adam's a jerk most of the time, and Joel is just weird. Matt doesn't mind their company as much, but Jeremy would much rather stay in the comfort of their tree house, modest though it may be (okay, so 'modest' is an understatement. It's really fucking small.).

But he and Matt had stumbled across an unconscious girl on the beach, and there was nowhere else for them to take her if she had any chance of waking up again. For one, neither he or Matt did potions or medicine or anything like that. Joel was the closest healer around. Also, Gus had extra room in his hut.

Jeremy makes Matt knock on the door and explain everything. He figures it's only fair since he's the one that carried the girl here. Gus isn't there, which makes convincing Joel to look after the girl that much easier. Joel peers at her for a moment, takes her pulse, lifts an eyelid, before nodding and instructing Jeremy to lay her on the table.

Adam scoffs, his nose wrinkling. "Come on, man, that's where we eat."

"Well, right now it's where I do medicine," Joel snaps. He starts muttering to himself, and Jeremy and Matt share an uncomfortable glance. "The two of you can leave now," Joel says, not even bothering to look up at them.

"We can stay and help," Matt offers, and Jeremy seriously considers hitting him. "If you need help, that is."

Joel snorts. "God no," he says. "This will all move faster if I don't have to babysit you two. Just go."

"If you insist," Matt grumbles, and Jeremy knows that he's feeling just as insulted by Joel's implications, if not more.

Adam gives him a sarcastic smile as he grabs a pair of metal buckets. "He really does."

(Gus)

Whatever he's expecting to find when he comes back to the village after a day of fishing on the dock, it certainly  _isn't_ Joel smearing a thick layer of greyish-green paste on an unconscious girl on their dining table.

"What the fuck, Joel?" he says. "We have to eat there."

"That's exactly what I told him," Adam says from the corner, not even looking up from his book.

Joel just shrugs, tips a small amount of water into the girl's mouth. "You worry too much," he mutters. "I'll clean up after myself, I always do."

Gus sighs, sets his pail of fish down with a thud. "That's not the point, Joel," he gripes. "Where am I supposed to prepare dinner?"

"I dunno," he replies, checking the girl's pulse and nodding to himself. "Your hut? Outside? It's stopped raining, right?"

"Whatever," Gus says, pinching the bridge of his nose, trying to ward off the headache that is rapidly building. "I guess I'll make dinner at my place." He picks up the pail. "You want to come with me, Adam?" he asks.

The kid shakes his head. "Nah, I'm good here."

"Suit yourself," he says. He nods to the girl before he leaves. "Any idea when she's going to wake up?"

Joel considers her for a moment. "I'd say at least an hour, possibly less."

Gus nods. "I guess I'll bring dinner over when it's ready." Maybe this isn't so bad, he thinks as he walks the few feet to his hut. At the very least, he has another hour of peace and quiet.

(Meg)

The first thing she notices when she wakes up is the smell of fish. Her stomach growls loudly. She's always loved fish, but she hasn't had it in  _so long_. Ryan was a decent enough cook and Ashley was practically a professional chef, but neither of them could ever cook fish properly.

"That smells so good," she murmurs without thinking, "can I have some?"

Someone chuckles and her body stiffens, suddenly realizing that she doesn't know where she is. She opens her eyes cautiously and groans at the dull ache in her head. She's in a small room, laying on a hard surface. "Where am I?" she asks, not even sure who she's talking to.

"A fishing village," a male voice answers. "A very small fishing village on the southern tip of an island in the middle of nowhere," he adds.

There are three men in the room with her; two way older, and one around her age. The youngest one speaks again. "I'm Adam," he says. He points to the dark haired man with glasses. "That's Gus." The one that looks permanently disheveled. "And that's Joel." He grins, his full beard bobbing slightly. "I figured that would probably be your next question."

She sits up, tries to return his smile, but the motion feels wrong. Everything feels wrong. "I'm Meg." She wants to ask if they know anything about the pirates, but she can't figure out how to word it right, so she settles on something that she can. "Why am I covered in mud?"

"First, it isn't mud," Joel begins, "It's a salve made from clay, seaweed, and, okay, maybe a little mud. Second, you're pretty badly sunburned, and my salve will help."

"Oh," she says, "thank you."

He shrugs and goes back to his fish. Her stomach growls again, even louder this time. Gus smirks. "Hungry?"

Meg nods, and he gets up, moves around in the room behind her. Finally, he hands her a plate of fish, potatoes, and carrots. A copper cup of water is set on the table at her side. She thanks him softly before starting on the fish. It's good, all of it is, and she almost forgets all of the awful things that led her to this moment. Almost.

They let her eat in silence, but three pairs of eyes are looking at her expectantly the moment her plate is clean. Unsurprisingly, Adam is the one that breaks the silence.

"So, how exactly did you end up here?" he asks.

She swallows hard, fingers curling around the seashell pendant that is miraculously still around her neck. "It's a long story," she whispers. It's not. It's pretty simple really. She got herself and Ashley kidnapped by pirates. And now Ashley is gone.

Joel pops a piece of carrot in his mouth and shrugs. "We've got nothing but time," he says.

Gus rolls his eyes. "Speak for yourself," he mutters. "I have a trade run coming up, I've got shit to do."

"Pirates," Meg says before they start arguing. She'd noticed while she ate that Gus and Joel argue  _a lot_. It seemed to be the only thing they did.

Gus's expression has soured and Joel looks pained, but Adam's eyes light up. "What about pirates?" he asks, and bile churns in her stomach.

"We were kidnapped by pirates and I managed to escape during a storm," she gets out in a rush. She folds her arms across her chest. "I don't want to talk about it."

"We?" Gus asks.

"I don't. Want to talk about it," she repeats, squeezing her eyes shut against the tears that are welling up, threatening to spill over. "Do I..." she clears her throat. "Do I have to sleep on the table?"

"I have a spare bed in my hut," Gus says softly. "I'll show you where it is."

She slides off the table, grateful that she can stand on her own for the moment. The room is suddenly stifling, and she just needs to get out of there. She leads the way out of the hut and understands immediately why Adam called the village 'very small'. There's only one other hut, and she lets Gus lead her to it and show her the spare bed.

She thanks him and lies down immediately, turns to face the wall so she doesn't have to see his sympathetic face anymore. "If there's anything that you need, let me know," he says.

She closes her eyes, lets the tears fall. "I just want to be alone."


End file.
